


The Death of Dreams

by Susana Rosa (SusanaR), SusanaR



Series: Desperate Hours Alternative Universe (DH AU) D version [25]
Category: Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Gen, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-31
Updated: 2011-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-23 07:32:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/247755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SusanaR/pseuds/Susana%20Rosa, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SusanaR/pseuds/SusanaR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Faramir and then Galadriel seek to comfort Arwen, after she and Aragorn suffer the loss of something-that-might-have-been, and as Arwen learns that becoming a mother can require daring to drink from a well of sorrows again and again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Death of Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Set in early T.A. 3020, after the first of several miscarriages that DH AU Arwen suffered before the birth of Eldarion in T.A. 3121.

Arwen was curled around herself on the settee in her bedchamber. It was third day, in the early afternoon. The early spring rain beat against the window... Arwen was supposed to be out, speaking to men in the carpentry guild about taking on female apprentices. Later today she'd intended to speak to Nessa about finding Rohirric musicians for Faramir and Eowyn's wedding, but she just had no energy.

And no reason, anymore, for not having energy. No more pregnancy sickness. No more cravings, no more hormone-induced muzzy-headedness. No more elfling, or baby, or...whichever-it-was, growing inside her. Arwen put her head down, hugged herself more tightly, and wept. It was foolish, she knew. It had been so early...how could she have known...but she had known. Known when she was not alone in her skin, and known when she was, again.

Aragorn was mostly unaware. They'd told him, when she'd lost the child. Elladan and her father had...they thought it best, since Arwen grieved, that Estel know, and know why. And her beloved husband was sympathetic, he was. But his way was to move forward, and solve things. And Arwen, and this sorrow, were not a problem that could just be solved. Daernana Galadriel said it was just something that must be lived through. Arwen's Adar hadn't said anything, he'd just held her hands tightly, and let her weep against his strong chest.

Arwen did not know how much time passed, with her curled in the settee and lost in her grief. The next thing she was aware of was warm fur under her hands, and she looked up to see a rather offended Whisper the cat, indignant at having been plunked onto her lap.

"Faramir," she said tearfully, unable to completely suppress a watery laugh at the cat's put-upon expression, "Whatever are you doing?"

Her friend and her husband's honorary younger brother, the Steward of Gondor, looked down at her from his place on the settee just beside her, where he'd sat after depositing Whisper on her lap, "Well, Whisper seemed bored of tormenting Aragorn, and my long-suffering cleaning staff has asked that I give them a day to remove silver-on-silver fur from my office, so I thought perhaps we might keep you company...."

Arwen choked on a sob, unable to keep a completely calm face for Faramir, who reminded her of Belemir, and whom she had come to love on his own account. He was like family, and Arwen had never been good at acting fine when she wasn't, not in front of her family. "You are...always welcome." The Queen managed in between sobs, "But I am...afraid, that I will be...but poor company, today."

Faramir's gray eyes held regret, and understanding, and something of sympathy. Not pity, but compassion. He could read her almost as if he were an elf...Arwen wondered for a moment how strange it must be, to be able to read the feelings but not speak in words with one's mind. Few enough humans had the gift so strongly to be able to truly suffer the dichotomy...of her own experience, she knew of only Faramir and Aragorn. Though her father and grandmother had told her of Gilraen, and Finduilas of Dol Amroth, besides.

"I'm told my mother could speak with her mind." Faramir murmured, almost in answer. "But not well, with other humans. Your grandmother has mentioned, though, that she could. And my Uncle, as well. And she did with me...when I was very small."

*Adar says that you can hear, but not speak.* Arwen replied, curious to see what Faramir would do, could do, despite her own grief.

Faramir rolled his eyes. "And your brother is obsessed with seeing if I can speak, too." Faramir murmured, and then, to his credit, he did try. Arwen caught something of Nessa...and a lost child. She blanched.

Faramir hurriedly apologized, but Arwen needed a moment. She held up one hand for peace, for her young friend's silence, while she moved the other hand through Whisper's soft fur. For that moment, her world was dark silver stripes over paler silver, and a rumbling, contented purr. Arwen did not have a child within her anymore...could not conceive of what she had done to lose it. She did not have the energy to go about the activities she normally enjoyed, or to be her normal self around her husband and their family. She had no appetite, and even her favorite foods tasted like ashes in her mouth. But she could make a cat purr, could make Whisper happy. And that counted for something. A moment, when her own pain was far away, when her sorrow was not the first thing on her mind. No, she had made a cat happy...if only making people happy were so easy.

"I'm sorry," she and Faramir said to one another at the same time. Arwen chuckled at that, still fighting tears, "You're trying to make me feel better, my dear young friend. You have nothing to be sorry for."

"No, no," Faramir disagreed, one hand worrying a lock of red-gold hair, until Arwen reached out to still his hand with a sisterly caress. Faramir gave her that hand, and reached out the other to scratch Whisper behind the ear Arwen was not attending to, as he continued, "I meant to speak to you of something innocuous...but all I could think about was Nessa. She was pregnant when Boromir died. She lost the baby a week after I went back to Ithilien, a week and a half after I brought her the news. I thought....I still think, if I'd just stayed in Minas Tirith a week longer..."

"Ai, Faramir." Arwen murmured, sympathy drawing her out of her grief, "Don't be foolish, dear one. There was nothing you could have done...you were a Captain, you had to be at your post. Nessa was a Captain's beloved, she understood that." And, Faramir was not a healer. Knowing their circle of friends as she did, Arwen was confident that Boromir's friends had gotten Nessa to a healer promptly. Sometimes, there was just nothing to be done.

Arwen pulled Faramir into a hug, and Whisper discontentedly resettled himself to accommodate his master half-sharing the lap of the Queen.

Faramir's eyes were misty. "I..I would've given nearly anything, to have Boromir back, or a child of his...he loved Tavan like his own, and I love Tavan dearly, I do. But I would've liked to have had his child, and Nessa's, in this world. A brother for Tavan, a younger son for Nessa, a younger nephew for me. I...this isn't helping I'm sure. I'm sorry, Arwen." He murmured, and Arwen didn't have to wonder what that must be like...she knew. Belemir's wife had been nine months pregnant when she died, drowned with her father Arvedui in the chilly waters of the far north. Arwen didn't find it a comfort now, but she knew she would in time... that she and Aragorn could try again. They were both still here.

She closed her eyes in fear...how close they had come to losing Aragorn terrified her. A few inches difference, and the assassin's arrow that wounded her husband might have killed him. He would have been lost as Belemir was lost, as Boromir had been lost, and no hope of children, not ever.

"We live," Arwen murmured gently to Faramir, to Whisper. "We live, and we will try again."

"You are stronger than I, I think. All of you ladies who suffer such disappointments and yet have the will to try again." Faramir told her, still clasped in her arms. "I read my mother's journals, from the time between when Boromir was two and I was born...eight children she lost in two years. Never more than two months along, but still....my father gave up, would not try again. Told Mother it was the will of the Valar, that he would not risk her. She refused to give up."

Arwen shuddered, and planted a kiss on their younger friend's red-gold head. "Your mother Finduilas was strong-willed indeed, my Faramir." She told him, "I cannot imagine how much having you at last must have overjoyed her."

Faramir met her eyes, a complex play of emotions in his eyes. Finduilas had loved him, aye, loved him so much that the strength of that love protected him still. And Boromir had loved him, and even Denethor had, though that love...that love had been rife with jealousy, envy, hurt, abuse, and neglect. To be given a child at such cost, and not treasure him...Arwen thought Denethor worse than a fool.

"My mother thought so too." Faramir said quietly, "It was one of the strange lessons of my early life, that you could love someone, and yet be utterly disappointed in them."

"You do not need to fear becoming such a man, or loving such a woman." Arwen assured him, "Both you and Eowyn are too brave for that."

"The old Steward did not lack courage." Faramir said with a sigh, "but I think Eowyn and I are at least too aware of the cost of self-delusion."

"I think you are, too." Arwen agreed, and they were silent for a time. Faramir fell asleep, and Whisper fell asleep, and finally Arwen did, too. When she awoke her Daernaneth was there, and Galadriel had decided that they would all go for a walk, and have a picnic.

"I have..." Faramir began, and Arwen would never know if he were going to say work, or an appointment, or what, because Galadriel shook her head, "No, I told Aragorn that I need you, too."

"Um. I can just go..." Faramir offered again, and Arwen suppressed a sympathetic smile at his discomfiture. It was undoubtedly true that he had something else to be doing...but his calm, undemanding company had been a balm to her, and she was glad that he would be with them. Daernaneth Galadriel could be...demanding.

Galadriel led them along a narrow path up Mount Mindolluin, past the Hallow where Aragorn and Arwen and their closest officers and friends came to give thanks to Eru. Past most of the secret ways Faramir had taught to Arwen and Aragorn, for leaving the city without detection. Up and up, until even Arwen was gasping for breath, and she and Faramir silently offered one another a hand from time to time. Up until they came to a fast-flowing, cold-as-ice stream, in a small glen, surrounded by tall, rounded rocks and shady trees.

Galadriel took a seat on a low hanging bough, and provided bread (somehow still warm), buttered with cinnamon and sugar, and hot, spicy tea. Eating the simple fare, Arwen felt better than she had, in days. Better enough to ask, "Why did you bring me here?"

Galadriel paused, her blue eyes fixed on something Arwen couldn't see. Arwen waited. She had been Galadriel's student, knew the ways of the seeress as well as the ways of the grandmother.

At length, Galadriel haltingly explained, "You, Arwen, are here because you are my granddaughter, and we will soon part, and there is...a story, I would tell you. Before we do."

*Which...sense. Now, Why ....I here?* The very male, very baffled, very resigned thought was quite clearly intelligible, almost as much so as if it had been spoken aloud. Both Galadriel and Arwen turned to look at Faramir, who blushed.

"Better." Galadriel praised, and Arwen felt sorry for Faramir, since it was evidently not only Elladan who was pestering him to try speaking with his mind. Galadriel, who did not feel shame for pushing her students, or Elrond's, or Elrond's children, or their friends, to greater effort, merely added, "But remember, even existential verbs such as states of being should be included in your thoughts. Since they aren't coming across, maybe you should emphasize them, like so...*That MAKES sense. Now, why am I here?* * Galadriel repeated Faramir's earlier statements in a very loud mental voice.

Faramir sighed stoically, and Arwen took pity on him. "Daernana," she scolded, "Tell Faramir why he is here."

Galadriel considered Faramir, who sat beside Arwen on a flat-topped rock. "You are here," she answered at length, "because your mother was one of my most difficult yet capable students, and she did...something, to you, which makes your fate hard...if not impossible, for me to read. Not you, yourself, Faramir. I can read you well enough...you are gentle and brave and somewhat too self-effacing. But what you may become, may face, in time, is near entirely opaque to me. So I am telling you everything I can think of, and all I am moved to recall, in hopes that some of it may prove of some use to you."

Arwen choked on an incredulous laugh, and Faramir inhaled, disbelieving. "That's, ah, very..."

"Kind, and forethoughtful." Arwen finished, "But mostly very kind, and, um, grandmotherly, and such, of you, Daernana."

Galadriel smiled. She did try hard to be motherly, and it had never really come naturally to her.

Faramir managed a slightly strained smile of thanks, thinking to himself that Galadriel's collecting him at odd hours for rambling little chats, or including him in one thing or another that she wanted to tell Elladan, or Elrohir, or Aragorn, and now Arwen, made more sense. Faramir loved hearing stories of Middle Earth's history from someone who had lived so much of it, but...he felt rather an interloper, still.

"Now," Galadriel began, "I want to tell you of the death of dreams, and learning to live past it..."

Year 40 of the Second Age, Lindon

Galadriel awoke, the sun shining through the window pane beside her. She felt miserable, as she had every day for the past four months. Some ellith loved being pregnant, smiled through the misery and looked wonderful and glowing. Galadriel felt dead inside. She knew she wasn't...she'd known as soon as she was pregnant, each time, and this was the third. The third, and the first that had gone so long. She hoped desperately that they would have an elfling, come next spring. She loved the tiny life inside her even more than she hated the burden that carrying it put on her spirit, mind and body. But Galadriel was not in the habit of lying to herself, and nothing about this was easy.

By lunch time, Galadriel was in her bedroom again, with dark curtains drawn across the windows. The slightest hint of light, of motion, of sound, was agony. Even her husband's caress across their mental bond hurt like blades digging into her brain.

"It takes some ellith like this, Aunt Galadriel." Her part-human nephew's gentle voice said softly, full of compassion. "These headaches, we don't know why, really. Most of what I can give you that's safe for the elfling is a piss-poor substitute for anything that works. Honestly, cold water with lemon and a hot bath is the best we can do. But if the headache doesn't abate for more than three days, we'll have to risk something stronger."

Galadriel whispered her assent, and Elrond bravely put up with being oh-so-quietly berated and insulted by Galadriel's chief lady-in-waiting, who loathed him, as he aided her to bathe and to drink.

"I am too miserable to care about propriety." Galadriel informed her ladies, "Go away if you can't be polite."

Two days later, the headache finally went away. A week later, Galadriel had one of the only three hour stretches where she hadn't felt abjectly miserable, since the pregnancy started. And Elrond sent another healer in his stead to see her, which was unusual.

"He's having one of those weeks where he misses his twin most fiercely, poor dear." Healer Elain, Lord Arandil's wife, confessed to Galadriel.

Galadriel had been planning to go riding that day, anyway. The consensus amongst the healers was that riding was safe for the first five months of a year-long pregnancy, if the elleth in question was an excellent rider, and didn't try to ride at more than a walk. Galadriel was approaching the point in her pregnancy where riding, along with almost every activity she enjoyed, would be prohibited for the duration. She felt like she would die of...of not being herself, if she didn't get out of Lindon, and feel the wind beneath her hair, just once more. It was just coincidence that Elrond was having a bad week, and that she went to the palace to collect him, first.

It was just coincidence that a late-summer thunderstorm came up suddenly, when Elrond and Galadriel and their companions were riding back from the beach. They dismounted near a shelter used by Lindon's guard on maneuvers, and were safely under the roof by the time the rain started. The storm passed and they were back in Lindon well before dusk, and Galadriel dismounted again to bid Elrond farewell for the evening. Galadriel was holding the reins of her most even-tempered mare, inviting her nephew to lunch later that week, when a fruit vendor's horse shied at a dancing leaf. The cart skidded, and broad-sided Galadriel and Elrond and their mounts.

Galadriel would remember the pain forever...the sense of loss was almost immediate. She'd been wounded before in battle, but Galadriel knew immediately that something was badly wrong, this time. Elrond, bruised and battered all over, was beside her in an instant, and from then things moved very, very fast.

Through the pain and the dread and the wrenching sorrow and loss, Galadriel lost control...memories she'd locked in their place, of the trauma that had strained her spirit and mind to the point that something inside her had broken, making her prophetic gifts manifest years earlier than they should have...those memories were momentarily foremost in her mind. Then, too, she had felt things she hadn't wanted, that had horrified her, that she hadn't had any control over. The current pain and loss made her remember that earlier pain and loss..and for at least an instant she knew Elrond saw it, too.

Then more pain and more hands, and she was aware of Celeborn beside her at one point, but the disappointment, the grief, that she thought he would feel was too much for her to take, on top of her own. She knew her ladies were beside her, but she couldn't take them, either, so she asked them to leave.

Galadriel could vaguely remember Elain asking them all to leave, and then Elrond at last forcing Celeborn and her ladies to leave. "We are coming to a point where decisions must be made, decisions that must be hers alone, or you and she will regret them forever," Galadriel's quiet nephew, all healer now, fiercely ordered his uncle.

A part of Galadriel was with her beloved husband, even then, and she knew that her ladies comforted the stricken Celeborn, even those who didn't like him, or who thought that Galadriel had married beneath her. They all loved her, and knew that she loved him, and that he loved her.

Then all of her attention was with Elrond, and Elain, and the other healers. Pain, and choices, and more pain. At last, the greatest of the physical pain at least was over, and from a long distance she heard Elrond's voice again... and saw him, through Celeborn's eyes.

Her grieving cousin, Celeborn's nephew and so her own, shaking like the youth he still was now that the immediate need for the healer had passed, as he related "Lady Galadriel will live, but we could not save this babe. We saved the possibility that she could bear another, someday in the future."

Celeborn barely listened to the end of that statement before carefully pushing past Elrond to go to his wife.

Elrond was a healer, though, and so he grabbed Celeborn's shoulder, to finish, "One more thing, Uncle. One more pregnancy in the future, after she has had time to heal - even that is a gamble, but a good one. More than one pregnancy...are not odds I would play, were I her." Only the fact that Elrond looked as devastated as Celeborn had ever seen him saved his nephew from his worried anger. As it was, he merely squeezed the youth's shoulder, and moved beyond frantically, needing to see his love.

They wept together, Celeborn and his lady. For many days, he left the governance of the Sindar section of Lindon to his nephew Amdir and his younger cousins, that he could be with Galadriel.

"I have failed at the only thing that matters, for ellith." Galadriel mourned one evening, feeling very much not herself.

"Don't be a fool, beloved." Celeborn reassured her, arms and spirit wrapped around her, cushioning her, in her grief.

"My own mother....her mother, my father's mother...your mother...they all had elflings. Why cannot I?" Galadriel whispered, tears falling down her face. She knew her father's father might say that it was because she was an unnatural elleth, not content with her place, never content with anything. And one of her uncles would say even worse, but his part in this tragedy was greater than anyone knew, save she and maybe now Elrond. And Galadriel refused to make it greater, so she shut out her grandfather's and uncle's imagined voices in her head, and listened only to her husband.

"We are not them. I love you whether or not we have elflings...you and I, we have a life, even so. As long as we're together, you and I, I am content." Celeborn assured her. Galadriel knew that he spoke truth, but knew too that he wanted elflings, wanted to be a parent, even more than she did. Galadriel had loved their elflings from the day each was begotten, but she was not an elleth who longed to be a parent. She longed to be the parent of their elflings...but not to be a parent. Her love wanted to be a parent, so Galadriel knew, despite her overwhelming pain, despite the great desire to never drink from this well of sorrows again, that someday, she would try again to beget an elfling. Because when she married Celeborn, she had married his dreams, as he had married hers.

Weeks passed, and Galadriel mostly still did not feel herself. She returned to exercising as she had before, and to many of her old activities. Sometimes, she felt a little happiness at being able to do the things she enjoyed. Mostly, she felt guilty even for that happiness. Of course she would have preferred to have still been pregnant, and of course it had not been her choice to be run over by a fruit cart. So she should not feel guilty for, say, loving the taste of cinnamon again, even though the elfling she had last carried could not abide it. But she did.

A week came where it seemed too much effort to even get out of bed. Elrond was gone on maneuvers, so other healers saw her, and they said it was well that she should rest. Life passed by...Galadriel ate as bidden, and tried to forget, for the moment, that she was still alive. Until Elrond returned, and returned the favor she had done for him, forcing him to go with her out and about, the day that her world almost ended.

"This will never do." He scolded his aunt, and pestered Galadriel until she got dressed and agreed to go with him. It was mid-afternoon, and Celeborn was at a council meeting, one Galadriel and Elrond should have been at, too.

"I'm playing hooky." Elrond told her as they left their horses at the base of a wooded hill and began to climb, "I never do it, so it should take them by surprise, at the least. Here, this is where I wanted you to see."

Galadriel looked around, "It's a nice enough sea-side cliff as these things go, Elrond, but..."

Elrond pointed to the earthen pit fire place that still held smoldering coals, "This is where we camped last night, on our way back. I thought...the humans, when they lose someone, they cut their hair, and burn it. I thought that might help, maybe. It's a tangible loss, but not a permanent one."

Galadriel liked that idea, for one more than one reason. It actually made her laugh, bitterly, but the bitterness lanced a bitter pain inside her. She took her belt knife, and reached up to begin hewing her hair off, just above her shoulders.

Elrond gently slapped her hand away, "Put that back. Honestly, you'd think I was the elleth..." He undid her braids, and then, with a pair of sharp but small shears, he carefully cut her hair.

Galadriel shook her head as the weight of it fell away, rather liking the feel of soft golden-and-silver strands just brushing her shoulders. Together with Elrond she picked up the the lengths of gold-and-silver, which they laid on the coals. Elrond stirred the fire, Galadriel added new kindling, and a fire sprang up, consuming most of her formerly glorious hair. Some strands floated up from the fire, or remained on the ground where they'd fallen. One braver-than-average seagull approached their fire, and made off with several silver-and-gold strands.

Galadriel laughed. "I begrudge not the gulls, nor the flame, as much of the hair I have given as they might wish."

"I know." Replied Elrond. Any other being, almost, would have said more...but on some level, Elrond and Galadriel understood one another, very well.

They waited until the fire had died down. Then it was late enough that they watched the sun set, then the moon and the stars come out. Then they saw torches, coming from the direction of Lindon.

"Elrond," Galadriel began, "Did you forget to tell Cirdan or Ereinion or, ah, anyone, where we were going?"

Elrond grinned at her, and for a moment he looked like Elros, as he complained lightly, "Ereinion said I'm so predictable that I'm dreary, and that he wished I would get into trouble. Cirdan told me to take the afternoon off. And my Captain said that I need to work at evading pursuit and not leaving a readable trail. Could I persuade you to help me play hide-and-seek with our torch-bearing friends?"

Galadriel sighed, but when Elrond presented his appeal in those terms, she found it hard to tell her youngest nephew "no." So they dodged and evaded, and had made it back to the kitchens of Ereinion's palace in time to help prepare an evening repast of tea and sandwiches made up from the dinner which had been served earlier. Having food and drink dulled the temper of their pursuers, but did not completely quench their annoyance.

"I said, 'get into trouble,' Elrond." The young Aran lectured his foster-brother and heir grumpily, "Not worry us all."

"Nag, nag, nag." Elrond teased back, ducking behind his aunt when Ereinion made to grab him.

Celeborn gently put his hands on Elrond's shoulders, and pushed him towards Ereinion.

Ereinion and his gwador Drystan grinned at the slightly wary Elrond, before each put an arm around him. "Atarinya," Ereinion informed Cirdan, "We're going to take pityahanonya out dancing with us tonight, and get him drunk, so that he understands what, 'go, have fun, even get into some trouble...' means, as opposed to, 'disappear and make us send out the guard.'"

"Uncle Cirdan..." Elrond whined, "Don't let them. They're going to make me drink and dance with ellith, and I don't want to."

Cirdan chuckled tolerantly, "Be glad you're getting off this lightly, Elrond. And mind you don't disappear with just your Aunt, without leaving word, again."

"Yes, Uncle Cirdan." Elrond agreed, as he was gently but firmly led away by his foster-brother the Aran and the Aran's gwador Drystan. Six guards followed them...four Ereinion's, and two of them Elrond's.

"I wasn't thinking." Galadriel murmured in apology. Well she knew why Cirdan insisted that his fosterlings be kept safe...Ereinion was the King, and after him there was only Elrond, then Galadriel. And most of Ereinion's elves disliked and distrusted the thought of being governed by a peredhel, or an elleth. Disliked it enough that Elrond's disappearance even seemed desirable to some...and he and Galadriel had been very much alone on the day's foray.

Cirdan waved off her apology. "You weren't at your best, and Elrond took advantage. But it was unlikely that the two of you would run into anything too dangerous, together and so close to Lindon."

Galadriel nodded, and they spoke of pleasant things, for some time. Then Cirdan left to deal with some minor issue so that it would not interrupt his fosterlings' rare night of revelry, and Celeborn swept his beloved wife into his arms.

"I'm not going to break." She reprimanded him breathlessly.

"I know." The silver-haired elf replied with a roguish grin, "but you look lovely, and I cannot wait to ravish you."

Galadriel laughed, feeling herself again with a relief that was both profound and unexpected. Celeborn carried her to the room they slept in when they were too late at the palace to return to their home, and laid her on their bed. Questioningly, he brushed the silken tips of her now shoulder-length hair.

Galadriel leaned forward, kissing him passionately and reaching her hands to undo his clothing. *I hope that you do not mind the hair cut too much,* She said without words, *But I don't care that much even if you do, because it helped.*

He returned the kiss with great interest, trying to remove her clothing before she could his, because almost everything minor was a competition to them, a game, at times like this, *It's different, the short hair,* he replied, *but if it helped, then I don't mind at all. I even like it.*

Galadriel would always have fond memories of that night. It was not the end of her grief for their lost elfling, for their lost dream of having a large family. But it was a turning point. For those elves who would later ask her, how she could still love her nephew Elrond when he broke her daughter's heart again and again, Galadriel would give no answer. Because it wasn't any of their business.

But there was an answer, that she and Celeborn knew. Although she was furious with Elrond for thinking he could protect Celebrian by refusing to marry her, Galadriel remembered that without Elrond and his fellow healers, there would have been no possibility of Celebrian. And without Elrond, there might have been much more time, before Galadriel felt ready to try again to have an elfling. As it was, it took well over a hundred years before she was ready.

About 200 S.A., in Evendim

They were living in Evendim then, far from Elrond and most of the other of elvenkind's best healers. But several gifted and capable healers were with them, and they were also far away from most fruit carts. Celeborn took advantage of Galadriel's pregnancy, and made her promise him that, if this elfling were born safe, they would not both go to war again whilst she lived. Celebrian was born in Evendim, and Galadriel took several years off from her duties of ruling the settlement to just be Celebrian's mother. Well, mostly off.

When Celebrian was still young, Galadriel felt....darkness, encroaching upon Evendim. Something hunting, hunting elves who walked alone, but especially elflings. One day, a teenaged elfling disappeared. Galadriel was afraid, so afraid, for that elfling. But thank Eru, it turned out he'd just gotten lost, and ended up spending the night with some friendly otters in their den.

After that, though, Galadriel and Celeborn and their advisors decided that Evendim, that living out in the wilds in the open, was no longer safe. And Celeborn took the great leap of faith of following his wife to Khazad-dum, because Galadriel felt there was something to be learned there, and elfling Celebrian came along, too. Galadriel and Celeborn's daughter enjoyed her time with the dwarves very much. Celebrian even made long-last friendships with several dwarflings, some of whose descendants her husband and children would host, along with their hobbit companion, along the course of a perilous quest to reclaim a mountain from a dragon.

Somewhere between 225 and 900 S.A.

In Khazad-dum came the idea of Eregion, and Eregion flourished for nearly a thousand years before...well, that is another story. But Galadriel did risk a second pregnancy in Eregion, one that nearly cost her her life. She lost the elfling.

"I know...I know that you love Celebrian beyond anything, as do I...but you, you wanted a son...how could you not..." Galadriel wept, "this one...and the first, both were sons. Celebrian...would have loved....brothers."

"Shh, calmly, meleth." Celeborn soothed her, "Celebrian would have loved any sibling, of course, but she has Erestor, who is her gwador and very much like a brother unto her."

"But you still have no son." Galadriel managed through tears, reaching for calm.

"No. But I have loved Elrond and Elros as if they were ours, and Erestor as another nephew. Amdir and Ereinion and our other kin may yet have children, and we will have them to love. Celebrian may marry and provide us with grandchildren...I have you, and we have our daughter. We are lucky, meleth-nin. And I feel the most lucky of all ellyn, do not worry." Celeborn said, and Galadriel knew he spoke truth.

Minas Tirith, Glen on Mount Mindolluin, Year 3020 of the Third Age

Arwen blinked away tears. "I'm sorry, Daernana." She offered.

Galadriel sighed, "Thank you, my dearest, but that wasn't my point."

Arwen fought the urge to bite her lip in frustrated confusion. Sometimes Daernana Galadriel's points were awfully obscure. "Um...that it would be fine if I just have a daughter? I'd love a daughter, but from the perspective of Aragorn's people, I'm really not sure that would be enough...it would be much more convenient if Aragorn had younger brothers, and they already had children." Arwen mourned.

Galadriel sighed in frustration. Evidently Arwen had not yet articulated the intended "point" to the story. Faramir rolled his eyes, and Arwen had to stifle a giggle. Her brothers did that, sometimes, too, at times like this.

"Arwen's daughter might have sons?" Faramir put forth, as he might an answer in a game of charades.

Galadriel narrowed her eyes at him, and Faramir offered more seriously, "In all honestly, Aragorn technically has the right to make whomever he wants ruler after him. Well, I mean, I doubt he could get away with someone totally unrelated to him, or say, Whisper the cat. But daughters are not precluded. Elendil's legal right to rule men came as much from his descent from the Princess Silmarien as from his leadership of the Elendili. And in fact had Isildur died climbing the white tree, and Meneldil during the war, Anarion's daughter Princess Inkeri might well have become Queen Inkeri of Gondor and Arnor, instead of the Lady of Lossarnach."

Galadriel and Arwen looked at him, impressed, and Faramir flushed. "That's what I've read, anyway."

"No, that's quite correct." Galadriel praised, "although it still wasn't my point."

Arwen and Faramir exchanged baffled glances, but as the sky darkened and the stars came out, they were saved by calls of, "Queen Arwen? Prince Faramir? Lady Galadriel?" from further down the mountain.

"Ah...that would be your husband our King, and your brothers, and...Legolas, I think." Faramir related with clear relief, "I'll just go meet them and assure them that all is well." *Obscure...strange....but well.* Faramir managed to relate, just to Arwen, whose lips twitched.

Galadriel, who was not stupid or unperceptive, rolled her eyes and chuckled, "He's not as subtle as he thinks he is." She remarked quietly, after Faramir had departed to meet their kinsmen.

"You're not his enemy." Arwen replied, "He can be quite subtle, when he wants to be. And perhaps you didn't want him to realize your point, Daernana. What is it? I'm sorry not to have realized, but we're running out of time for guessing games."

"In more ways than one," Galadriel murmured softly, getting up to stroke Arwen's hair, "My dearly beloved granddaughter, my point is that...even when dreams die, life goes on. And the death of dreams can give you the chance to realize what is truly necessary, and appreciate what is possible. It sounds awful, but just because dreams die, doesn't mean that you can't find new dreams, new happiness, and even more love than you could have imagined. You just have to keep your eyes open to it."

Arwen's gray eyes opened wide as she considered that, "And Aragorn could appoint anyone his heir...." Anyone. Even Faramir, who had stepped aside for Aragorn. Faramir, who respected women. Faramir, who did not want to be King and would step aside again, even for a King's daughter. A thought Arwen and Aragorn had already considered, but not...not in such clear terms. And perhaps it was time to, before Aragorn went to battle the Easterlings later this spring.

Galadriel sighed, "No, that wasn't my point, either. And I don't mind if you tell Faramir what I told you, but I wouldn't hint that you're thinking of co-opting him as Aragorn's heir. That would probably best come from both you and your husband at once. Nor do I mean that I think you and Aragorn won't have children of your own...I rather think you will. Your father sees most often clearly, and he sees for you both a son, with dark hair and gray eyes."

Arwen smiled distractedly at her grandmother as the lanterns and friendly, familiar male laughter drew closer, "Thank you, Daernana. I certainly feel better, and that...that is a good thing."

Galadriel smiled uncertainly back, and Arwen turned to meet her husband with a brave smile. Arwen believed they would have at least a son together, someday in the future. If Aragorn lived long enough....but in the meantime, *You must make a personal device for the succession before you leave to meet the Easterlings.* She reminded her husband.

Aragorn startled, embraced her before immediately looking to Faramir, who was receiving sympathy from the twins and Legolas for having had to spend all afternoon with Galadriel.

Arwen continued, *We should still ask to adopt him, and use the privy council at least to encourage such a result...but Faramir cannot contest a written will you leave behind.*

Aragorn nodded, kissing Arwen briefly but thoroughly. A promise. He put one arm around his wife, and another around his Steward, and together they preceded down the mountain, helping one another to step safely in the growing darkness. One dream ended, another dream begun. Safely back in the kitchen, Arwen toasted her husband, *to many dreams together...and many years to dream.*

Aragorn toasted her back, and Arwen read in his eyes that he was happy with her, just to be with her. And felt comforted knowing that her grandmother had actually been right...it might be difficult for Gondor in the future, but all that Aragorn needed for his contentment, he already had. Not that he wouldn't joyfully welcome children, should she bear them...but that he already felt he was the luckiest of men, and that such feeling wouldn't change if they were never blessed with offspring of their own.


End file.
